She's Not There
by katergator
Summary: A collection of first person narratives of the disbanded Titans twenty years into the future after Starfire disappeared with Warp in "How Long is Forever?" Each Titan reflects on their life and just what Star meant to the team...
1. obsolete

_Well no one told me about her, what could I do_

_Well no one told me about her, though they all knew_

_But it's too late to say you're sorry_

_How would I know, why should I care_

_Please don't bother tryin' to find her_

_She's not there_

_Well let me tell you 'bout the way she looked_

_The way she'd act and the color of her hair_

_Her voice was soft and cool_

_Her eyes were clear and bright_

_But she's not there_

_But it's too late to say you're sorry_

_How would I know, why should I care_

_Please don't bother tryin' to find her_

_She's not there_

_

* * *

_Obsolete. 

One word that had always been in the back of my mind, nagging at my conscious. One word that threatened my future, and made me wish it'd never come. I wanted to tell myself that I could be repaired, and I'd never have to face that frightening word...

I was a technological wonder; and after awhile I was proud of my body, and proud of the way I could manage it. Though it could never be better than being human and being able to feel with my own skin, I was grateful for what I had. Without the technology, I'd be a pile of limbs.

But like all technology, after a long time it wears. It becomes old. Obsolete.

My breath rises in steam from the cold that I can't actually feel as I stand at the window, staring out over the city that I used to protect. The skyline is gray and clouded with hazy smog. The moon doesn't even cast a glow over the dreary snow that covers the streets and skyscrapers. This skyline used to be beautiful... this window used to be whole, instead of a huge spider web crack through its middle, with glass shattered on the floor. Her blorthog chimes are still lying where they were dropped twenty years ago, when this tower used to be home to five laughing teens...

Now, it only has me.

I'd leave. I'd get away from here, away from the memories, and from my past. But I can't. I wouldn't get far. Besides, I don't have a reason to anymore. After she disappeared, we fell apart.

We fought. All of us. No one really understood just how much she added to the team until she was gone. We were disoriented. Even Raven's usually expressionless face looked worried. And Robin... he was the worst of all. He paced back and forth, and no one could calm him down. After two years, the rest of us gave up. We couldn't track her. She was gone, and the rest of us accepted it. But he couldn't. He argued. Words we didn't really mean were said, he stormed out, and we never saw him again. Soon after, Beast Boy and Raven fought with each other too, and they both went their separate ways. And I? I stayed here. I didn't know what else to do.

With all of my friends gone, I let myself go. There didn't seem to be a reason for me to keep up with the replacements, or to polish my chrome. I hid away in the tower, and let time pass on, and that word crept ever closer.

I didn't realize how empty my life could be without my friends, or just how much life she herself gave to the team. Sure everyone, except for maybe Robin, found her cheerfulness annoying at one point or another-- especially Raven. But once she was gone, the happiness was sucked out of us all. We argued and then... we broke up.

Life came to a complete halt. But there was no honor in dying, so I lived on, working on my own bits of technology, maybe someday selling a few of the inventions I had created, and have a purpose once again.

I laugh ruefully and shake my head. Maybe this is all a dream... and tomorrow I'll wake up and my friends will be back, and she'll have never left.

I sadly turn away from the window and begin to head back to my old room. As I did so, I heard someone calling out in the tower.

I wanted to believe it...

I heard her voice. I ran back to the place where I had just come from, and there she was in the old living room, staring out into the murky polluted waters of the bay.

I called her name, hoping against hope that she wasn't just a vision.

She turned to me, and I gasped as she ran forward and threw her arms around my neck.

She hadn't aged a day since she disappeared twenty years ago.

It all makes sense now... where she's been all this time.

She wants me to come with her, to find the others. I want to, but I can't. She looks sad, and I tell her I can't.

I'm obsolete.


	2. cage

I've always wanted to be in the show business... had to admit it was a dream of mine. I wanted to be a stand-up comedian, and have my own show. I knew it would never be a reality though, with my appearance... and so I tried to stick with the superhero business, because it was the only thing I could do. Or so I thought. I wasn't good enough.

I went solo after Raven and I finally told each other off. After all I tried to do for her... I just wanted to make her smile, but she didn't care. She always disliked me... always told me my jokes weren't funny, and cut me down whenever she could. Robin was completely out of his mind, Cyborg wasn't taking sides, and she wasn't there to break up the fight cause she had disappeared. No one could agree on anything, and Robin was completely unbearable to be around. He left first after Cyborg and Raven said they couldn't find her.

I left after him.

I thought I could take being a superhero by myself. I'd beaten down plenty of bad guys.

I got thrashed.

I left the city then, and went to LA. I tried to get a stand-up gig. People didn't want to touch me, or even look at me. I was a freak. And when I was finally given an interview... Raven was right all along.

Maybe I just didn't have the confidence anymore. She used to be the only one to tell me how good I was at fighting and made me feel like I was an important part of the team. She was the only one to cheer me on. I had to admit, a lot of times I wanted to leave. It really felt like no one appreciated me at all. But then she'd give me a smile, and tell me that I had fought wonderfully and kicked the butt of the bad guys. Whenever she understood them, she'd laugh at my jokes. I can still hear her giggle in my head... high pitched and melodious.

But no one else seemed to appreciate my jokes the way she did.

So, I'm in the show business in the only way I can be.

I don't mind the food thrown at me so much... but sometimes the ice cream gets sticky and mats in my fur. And the names... I try to tune them out. I can sit here, all day in my cage, and keep out the world.

But then she came back. I couldn't believe my eyes, as I saw familiar bright green ones stare through the bars at me.

No way.

She looked up sadly at me and reached a hand through the cold metal to grab my own.

She wanted me to come with her... but I can't. People don't understand anymore...

This cage isn't to keep me in, it's to keep them out.

They'd chase me, take me down. I'm a freak now...

and freaks belong here, where I am... in a cage.


	3. figments

Figments...

My friends were all figments. Just my imagination. They were never real... they were pointless.

And she... she was never really there. Just like right now. She's just a figment, looking at me, smiling with that huge grin that was always plastered on her face.

They all left... all of them. They left me. And it's because she left, and she's never coming back.

Never coming back.

Never... coming... back...

None of them. I tried to say I was sorry...

I tried to tell him I was sorry.

I was sorry.

But he left anyway.

I wanted to tell him the truth.

I screwed up.

I told him I hated him.

No...

It doesn't matter... he's not real.

She's not real either. None of them are.

They still haunt me.

She's just in my imagination, hovering over me, mocking me. That's all she is.

She's just a figment.

She comes and goes... they all do. They come to laugh at me, watch me as these white walls slowly close in on me... I'd scream, but screaming is pointless.

She's here again... but I know better. She's just a figment. She's talking to me. She's trying to tell me that she's back, but I know better.

Noooo...

She's never coming back.

Never coming back!

She's just in my imagination. She's trying to touch my shoulder, but she can't do that because she's not real. Just like all the others. She left, _just like aaaall the others_.

You're not real.

She's a figment.

Just a figment.


	4. alone

_I walk a lonely road_

_The only one I that have ever known_

_Don't know where it goes_

_But it's home and I walk alone_

_I walk this empty street_

_On the Blvd. of broken dreams_

_Where the city sleeps_

_And I'm the only one and I walk alone_

_My shadow's the only one that walks beside me_

_My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating_

_Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me_

_Till then I'll walk alone_

_

* * *

_I've learned a lot of things in the past twenty years. Mainly, that for all the trouble I put Bruce through, I understand now why he kept me around when I was a kid, and why it hurt him so much to see me go. 

He was lonely.

And since the day I walked out on the second team I had been a part of, the team I had helped form and the team that I led, I became a lonely creature of the night as well. I had too much pride to go crawling back to Bruce, but I was too empty to try and live a normal life. Without her, there wasn't a reason to live a normal life. There didn't seem much to fight for either, but I had always believed in justice, and no criminal should get away. As long as my body was able, I had to protect the city-- but fighting in these streets is hell. No one cares anymore. There's so many criminals, so many corrupt... And I'm beginning to fear that I can't do it alone.

I couldn't understand where she'd gone. We all didn't realize just how much she affected us... me most of all. I know now what my then sixteen-year-old heart felt but my naive mind didn't understand.

It tore me apart. And when my friends had stopped looking, when they gave up, I couldn't stand it. Didn't they know how much she meant to the team? How much she meant to me? I walked out when they said they weren't trying anymore. That wasn't good enough.

So I went on my own and stuck to crime fighting in the dead of night. It was my only purpose, the only thing that kept me believing that waking up was worthwhile. I had taken an oath, so I had to fulfill it. But that alone couldn't fill the void in my life. I kept trying to find her myself, with no results. She's gone. She's nowhere. She's not there.

I had loved her. I didn't know it or understand back then just how much she meant to me. And I learned a valuable lesson: don't ever take the ones you love for granted. But, the price paid was the one person whom I loved more than anyone or anything in the world. Hadn't she lectured us right before we left to fight Warp? She was frantically trying to explain the importance of friendship, and none of us listened to her. We all waved it off as some stupid Tamaranian tradition that nobody actually cared to celebrate, even for her sake. And that was our problem... she had been right all along, and in the end she was gone and our friendship ripped at the seams.

I was patrolling the streets again, in the cold winter night. The roads were covered in dirty brown slush, the full moon shone through the haze in the sky, and the city was silent... except for a familiar scream.

My heart quickened the moment I heard it. It was a sound I hadn't heard for twenty years, but one that I had hoped I'd hear the entire time.

I swung over buildings and back alleys till I came to a fight. And I nearly lost it when I saw the one person I had been looking for. She was fighting that bastard Warp, the one who we were fighting all those years ago. With a blast from his shoulder cannon he slammed her to the city floor. I jumped in and tried to take him out as quickly as I could. He managed to escape, but I didn't care. There was something more important holding my attention.

I hung back in the dark alley and watched her get up from the snow where he had pushed her down and primly wipe off her skirt. She then looked around herself cautiously, and I smiled, and marveled at how she still looked like she was sixteen. Then it hit me-- she _was_ still sixteen. I suddenly understood everything. _That's_ how she disappeared all those years ago and why none of our locaters could find her... she had followed Warp through a time portal and this is where it ended, twenty years into the future.

I stood in the shadows; my feelings completely overwhelming me. This was the moment I had been waiting for... her return. Granted, I had expected her to be my age, but a sixteen year old girl was better than no girl at all. Just to see her face again, and hear her voice as I remember it...

As she glanced into the alley where I stood, and cautiously called out a name I hadn't been called in fifteen years, all I could manage to say was...

_It's good to see you again._

_

* * *

_

Author's Notes: I suppose I took some liberties and imagined how the Titans broke up, and what some of them did after they had disbanded. I found that episode quite sad indeed, and found a great opportunity to write some good angst. For more comments on this and other works of mine check out my bio page.

Songs used were _She's Not There_ by the Zombies (Don't recognize it? If you've seen Kill Bill Vol. 2 it's the song playing at the end when The Bride's watching a movie with her daughter, BB. The song just seemed to fit the theme) and_ Boulevard of Broken Dreams_ by Greenday

Standard disclaimers apply.

And as always, reviews are quite lovely indeed.


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